Tags: Subway

Ten years ago the city of Naples, Italy, decided to renew their subway stations with a bit of art and life. Under the guidance of Achille Bonto Oliva, the former Venice Biennale director, 14 stations have been redesigned, and now house over 200 works by over 100 artists and architects. Each station has its own signature style.…

Somewhere along the border of still photography and motion picture lies the stunning high speed footage shot on Adam Magyar’s self-constructed slit screen camera with homemade software. Over a span of just seconds, on a busy NYC subway platform, there is so much going on and Magyar slows it down so that we can see how much our eyes miss. Hundreds of lives, all on a different path, converge for a moment on a single subway platform, likely never to line up in that same way again.…

Heading home for the holidays? Maybe your folks live back in Brooklyn, or maybe they live out in the sticks. Just how far and where could you get if the NYC subway lines were laid end-to-end in one direction?…

New York City, where half the population doesn’t own a car, is synonymous with Mass Transit. The MTA pegs subway and bus ridership at approximately seven million a day; and each year puts out a ridership report for subway and bus stations.…

Hidden below the streets of New York City are the long lost subway stations of old. Too small to accommodate the hoards that now travel the system daily, too small for the modern trains and too classy for a no-pants subway ride. This beautifully ornate station below City Hall was built in 1904 and operated until 1945 when it was closed to the public. Few have seen it in person.…

It’s easy to lose track of where you’re traveling on a subway: the train leaves the station underground, the windows grow dark and soon you arrive at your destination… but how far did you travel? Even the maps of the worlds subways, with their easy to read simplified formats, mostly lack any sense of scale for the underground system. These simple maps by Neil Freeman at Fake Is The New Real, add that missing element, cluing us into how big an area these people moving networks cover. Try comparing the maps of San Francisco and Paris… the scale of the results is revealing and surprising.…

This vintage footage from the dawn of film takes us on a trip through the original New York Subway system. Filmed May 21, 1905, on the Interborough Subway as it travels from 14th St. to Central Station, the silent movie captures the subway just 7 months after it first opened and reveals glossy new trains with clean columned stations filled by victorian attired commuters. It must have been an exciting time.

The film was transferred from 35mm film taken from what appears to be a train following the one filmed. On the parallel track another train pulls a car lighting the dark tunnels for the film. Be sure to watch the end of the film as passengers, unsure what to make of the camera, depart and enter the train.…

These vintage subway posters from 1970’s and 1980’s Japan playfully use a host of pop culture icons to encourage proper etiquette while boarding and riding the countries many punctual trains. Charlie Chaplin’s fuhrer reminds us not to take up too much space, Superman wishes he hadn’t stepped in your gum and John Wayne lets us know when it’s smoke free time. This collection of posters is originally from the book Manner Poster 100, published in 1983.…

Considered one of the most beautiful metro’s in Europe, the Stockholm subway system is filled with eye popping art and bright colors… a perfect cure for the proverbial Stockholm Syndrome. Each stop presents riders with a different visual feast as if they have been transported to a new magical underworld.

The metro has 100 stations of which 47 are underground. Construction of the large system began in 1941 with the last station opening in 1994. Some of the cavernous interiors where left with crude bedrock exposed, others have been tiled or even embedded with Romanesque statues. If you’ve ever visited this colorful underground land, the envious crew here at Visual News would love to hear about it!…

Filmed without permission or permits, Steve Duncan goes urban spelunking to find the hidden treasures under New York City. Followed by his brave cameraman, Duncan explores beautiful closed off subway tunnels from bygone era’s, the first underground sewer for the city and interviews the people that inhabit the dark place. See the beautiful photos he’s taken of his many adventures at undercity.org.…